October 9, 2025, 10:32AMNuclear NewsHash Hashemian and Ken Rueter A view of the East Tennessee Technology Park in 1989 before cleanup operations . . . (Photo: DOE)
ANS Executive Director/CEO Craig Piercy’s reflection on the 80th anniversary of the Trinity Test (Nuclear Newswire, July 16) was a thoughtful and fitting remembrance of the achievements and legacy of the World War II generation of nuclear pioneers. We also see legacy environmental cleanup as a vital next step as our industry launches what Secretary of Energy Chris Wright has defined as “Manhattan Project 2.0.”
Project contractors and DOE-LM support partner staff install a well based on design strategy developed by support partner senior hydrogeologist Pete Schillig. (Photos: DOE-LM)
When the Department of Energy’s Office of Legacy Management recently faced an operational challenge at the Rifle Disposal Site in Colorado, it took subject matter experts across a wide array of disciplines to tackle it.
A public meeting is held by the East Tennessee Economic Council to discuss the Oak Ridge nuclear site. (Photo: ETEC)
When it comes to decision-making, public participation and community engagement are not the same thing. The structure and content of meetings to enable public participation in project decision-making can be staid, stale, and staged. The approach can be formulaic and reactionary: “We have a decision to make; we’ve narrowed down the alternatives … let’s prepare the scripts, posters, and presentations, gather our materials, book a room, coach the presenters on how to be succinct, identify people to staff the kiosks, contact the community members and regulatory staff we usually contact, and let’s have a public meeting! Once we get this over with, we can finally build our project, demolish that building, clean up this site, etc.” Not so fast.
A Disa HPSA test unit used in a study in the Navajo Nation. (Photo: Disa Technologies)
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved a license application submitted by Disa Technologies to use high-pressure slurry ablation (HPSA) technology for remediating abandoned uranium mine waste at inactive mining sites.
A worker scans excavated soil at the DOE’s Oak Ridge site in this 2022 photo to ensure it contains no radioactive contaminants. (Photo: DOE)
Better information regarding the specific work needed to finish cleaning up contaminated soil and legacy landfills at Department of Energy nuclear sites could help the department better prioritize cleanup projects and improve budgeting decisions, according to an audit by the Government Accountability Office.
August 22, 2025, 9:35AMNuclear NewsHash Hashemian and Ken Rueter A view of the East Tennessee Technology Park after core cleanup was completed. (Photo: DOE)
ANS Executive Director/CEO Craig Piercy’s reflection on the 80th anniversary of the Trinity Test (Nuclear Newswire, July 16) was a thoughtful and fitting remembrance of the achievements and legacy of the World War II generation of nuclear pioneers. We also see legacy environmental cleanup as a vital next step as our industry launches what Secretary of Energy Chris Wright has defined as “Manhattan Project 2.0.”
A map of the Northeast Church Rock uranium mine site location. (Image: NRC)
The United Nuclear Corporation and General Electric will undertake a nearly $63 million, decade-long cleanup project at the former Northeast Church Rock Mine in northwestern New Mexico under a consent decree with the United States, the Navajo Nation, and the state of New Mexico.
An aerial perspective of the 32-acre parcel OREM recently transferred at the ETTP. (Photo: DOE)
The Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management recently completed the transfer of a 32-acre parcel at the East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP) for private sector use. The transfer brings the total amount of property transferred from federal ownership for economic reuse to 1,832 acres at the ETTP, which was once home to the Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant.
A Disa HPSA test unit used in a study in the Navajo Nation. (Photo: Disa Technologies)
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has received a license application from Disa Technologies to use high-pressure slurry ablation (HPSA) technology for remediating abandoned uranium mine waste at inactive mining sites. Disa’s headquarters in are Casper, Wyo.
A whitetail buck stops at the Fernald Preserve.
(Photo: Jeff Sluder/LM)
Focused on the post-cleanup management of closed Department of Energy sites, the DOE Office of Legacy Management (LM) is responsible for the long-term surveillance and maintenance of more than 100 sites across the United States and Puerto Rico associated with past radiological and nuclear material production and testing, and energy research—some dating from as early as the Manhattan Project. With cleanup completed, many of these sites have been put to beneficial reuse and repurposed as parks and nature preserves, where visitors can witness the return of thriving ecosystems.
Idaho National Laboratory employees consult on a microgrid at Utah’s Dugway Proving Ground. Two solar projects were selected for development on INL land. (Photo: INL)
On July 28, 2023, the Department of Energy launched its Cleanup to Clean Energy initiative, an effort to repurpose underutilized DOE-owned property—portions of which were previously used in the nation’s nuclear weapons program—into the sites of clean-energy generation.
Crews demolished a former chemical storage area at the Hanford Site’s Reduction Oxidation Plant. (Photos: DOE)
Workers with the Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management’s contractor Central Plateau Cleanup Company recently demolished a former chemical storage area at the Reduction Oxidation Plant, one of five former plutonium production facilities at the Hanford Site.
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in southeastern New Mexico. (Photo: DOE)
Juno Beach, Fla.–based NextEra Energy Resources Development has been selected to enter realty negotiations for a large-scale solar electricity generation project at the DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in southeastern New Mexico as part of the department’s Cleanup to Clean Energy initiative.
The D Area Groundwater Treatability Study project team assesses artesian flow into injection well at the Savannah River Site. (Photo: SRNS)
Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS), the management and operations contractor for the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site, announced that it has injected more than 100 million gallons of clean artesian well water to neutralize shallow groundwater contamination underneath 33 acres of a former coal storage yard and the associated runoff basin at the site in South Carolina. According to Ashley Shull, senior scientist for the project, “100 million gallons is nine times more water than [is] contained in the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta.”
The Paducah Site. (Photo: DOE)
The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management has issued a final request for proposals for an infrastructure support services (ISS) contract at the department’s Paducah Site in Kentucky, which is the former home of the Paducah gaseous diffusion uranium enrichment plant. DOE-EM has conducted extensive cleanup and environmental remediation activities at the site since the late 1980s.
The Materials and Fuels Complex at INL. (Photo: INL)
The Department of Energy will enter into lease negotiations with two solar energy developers for 400 megawatts of solar electricity generation within the Idaho National Laboratory site. Announced on June 5, the projects are the first proposed projects selected under the department’s Cleanup to Clean Energy initiative, an effort to repurpose parts of DOE-owned lands—portions of which were previously used in the nation’s nuclear weapons program—into sites of clean-energy generation, including for solar, geothermal, wind, and nuclear.
UCOR employees use a crane to load the Low Intensity Test Reactor vessel for transport to its final disposition location in Clive, Utah. (Photo: DOE)
The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management announced that the 30-foot-long, 37,600-pound reactor vessel from Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Low Intensity Test Reactor was shipped to EnergySolutions’ low-level radioactive waste facility in Clive, Utah, in late April.
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